This article first appeared in the March/April 1999 issue of American Songwriter Magazine.
Song is the door to Parton’s dreams
They say you can never go home again, but Dolly Parton has proven them wrong time and time again, most recently with her album Hungry Again.
In fact, Dolly admits that she has never left home, and wherever she goes, whether it’s Nashville in 1964 or Los Angeles in 1964 and beyond, she's never left home, and wherever she's been, she's always been a part of life in Appalachia, East Tennessee. I would like to think that I brought the club home. 70’s.
Sure enough, Dolly returned to East Tennessee in 1986 to open Dollywood. The amusement park provides many jobs in the area where Dolly grew up (“Most of them are for families,” Dolly says with a big smile) and is home to people. National Foundation to Conserve America’s Eagles. Mr. Parton also offers numerous scholarships and incentives to help teens stay in school and continue their education to earn a college or technical school diploma.
And you may be wondering what this has to do with songwriting. When it comes to Parton, the answer is everything. People like Parton, who grew up immersed in mountain life and a sense of family, never forget their background. It permeates everything she does, including songwriting.
(Related: The story behind Dolly Parton, Emmy Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Bury Under the Willows)
Early on, it was evident in her songs like "Coat of Many Colors” and “Apple Jack,” or in the sweet melancholy of “Little Andy.” Later, it appeared in her acting roles in Rhinestones, Steel Magnolias, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It oscillated in and out of her recordings, resurfacing in trio recordings with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, and recording ventures with Heartsongs Davis on the White Limozoon Project. More recently, her Heartsongs project has brought her back to her roots, with previously recorded self-singing songs like “To Daddy” and “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” as well as songs like “Wayfaring Stranger” and “I'” It also includes songs that she says have influenced her. “I’m thinking about my blue eyes tonight” and “What’s a friend called Jesus?”
Parton called the album “the album I’ve always wanted to do.” If that’s true, then Hungry Again is probably the album she needed to make. The song takes her straight back to her musical roots with lyrics like the title track, and then gets down to business with lyrics like, Sometimes I need to be hungry again to see how good I’ve eaten. ”
To write the 12 songs on this album, Dolly took the above message to heart. She returned to East Tennessee and drew inspiration from the beautiful Smoky Mountains where she grew up. “Before I started writing the songs for this album, I prayed and fasted,” Parton says, outlining an approach more songwriters might try before starting to write their next hit song. . “I didn’t know exactly what to do with my music career or life, so I sought guidance. Through that experience, I was able to grow closer to myself and God. It was hard and lonely. But it was also encouraging.”
“I knew in my heart that my music would always be my first priority (she always claimed she was a songwriter first and foremost), which led me to the Smoky Mountains and It was the songs I wrote and sang that took me all over the world. My songs to every dream I ever had and every success I ever achieved. No matter what else I’ve been blessed with, my first love is still music. I’m still hungry for hit records, hungry for singing, and writing songs for myself and others. I’m hungry to write.”
Parton said she continued to seek guidance by staying at her old home (called Tennessee Mountain Home), and once she found inspiration, she began writing songs that would become the basis for her new album. “After three months and 37 songs, traveling back and forth between a mountain house in Tennessee and a lake house outside of Nashville, we had enough material to make this album.”
The songs range from looking back on the “good old days” in “Hungry Again” to coming to terms with relationships in “The Salt in My Tears.” She tells the story of a young singer-songwriter on “Blue Valley Songbird,” and taps deeper into her gospel roots on “When Jesus Comes Calling For Me” and “Shine On.”
“I’ve always been a writer, and everything I write is based on something in my life,” Parton says. “I’ve been through a lot, but this is definitely the most personal album I’ve ever made. It’s almost like starting over. My true first love was It’s still in my music.”
Of course, each song on the album has a story. “Paradise Road” is about a poor child’s vivid imagination and is the only song Parton began writing before she actually went to the cabin.
“Blue Valley Songbird,” about a struggling girl from the Smoky Mountains, and “When Jesus Comes Calling,” about an old man reflecting on his life, both have special meaning to me. I have,” Parton says. “I’ve always written songs like this. ‘Blue Valley Songbird’ is not my true story, but everyone will tell you so.” I’m a storyteller, so I just turned it into a movie, and I think it would make a great movie, so I’m developing it as a TV movie of the week. ”
The first single from the album, “Honky Tonk Songs”, was aimed squarely at the female market. Of all the songs on this project, this is probably the one most accurately targeted to radio.
(Related: 5 beautiful songs you didn’t know Dolly Parton wrote)
“I thought it was just some good ol’ boys singing honky-tonk songs about heartbreak, and women are never allowed to do that,” Parton says. “Women need a way to mend their broken hearts too! I think it’s a timeless idea for women to sing honky-tonk songs. You can’t pick up a cowboy and dance with him or take him home. Men don’t want us to be honky-tonkin. Men often don’t want women to be who they are. So when I thought about it, I was so inspired that I wrote the song.
Of course, at the other end of the spectrum is “Shine On,” which Parton says was “written to have an intentional gospel feel, like “Amazing Grace.” I wanted to capture that same feeling on record, so I recorded it in this old church in the Smoky Mountains where my grandfather, Jake Owens, was the pastor. We used our hometown church congregation and then added other voices in Nashville. ”
There’s little doubt that Parton won’t need to rely on songs she’s already written for support. It is unrealistic to think that this talented woman will ever stop her creative flow and never write songs again.
Parton considers writing to be her greatest creative outlet, but she also considers it her piggy bank. “My songs are like my children and I hope they will still support me when I get older!” she explains. Indeed, songs like “I Will Always Love You” do just that.
